In this guide
Most website reports are long exports nobody reads. A useful one fits on one screen: whether the site is healthy, what changed since last month, and what you did about it. That is what keeps a retainer client paying.
Key takeaways
- A good client report answers three questions: is the site healthy, what changed, and what are you doing about it.
- Lead with one number the client understands (a health score), then a few clear findings.
- Show trends over time, not a single snapshot, so progress is visible.
- Send it on a fixed schedule in your own brand; consistency builds trust.
What clients want to know
- Is my website working? Uptime and any outages, in one line.
- Is it getting better? A score or a problem count compared with last month.
- What did you do? The two or three things you fixed, in plain words.
- Do I need to do anything? Only when the answer is yes.
What to leave out
- Hundreds of rows of crawl data: keep the full report one click away instead.
- Jargon without a sentence explaining why it matters.
- Numbers that never change month to month.
A simple structure
- A one-line summary: "Your site was up 99.97% of the time and its health score rose from 74 to 86."
- Health score and uptime, with last month for comparison.
- Problems fixed this month, and anything still open.
- A link to the full report for anyone who wants detail.
Automate it
On Studio's Agency plan, each website can send a monthly report to up to three client addresses on the 1st of the month, in your brand: health score, problems and warnings from the latest health check, uptime, and a link to the full report. Replies come straight to you.
Checklist
- Pick the few numbers your client cares about: health score, uptime, problems fixed.
- Put your logo and colour on the report.
- Add one line of plain-language summary before any table.
- Compare with last month, not just this month.
- Send it on the same day every month, automatically.
Questions
How often should I send client reports?
Monthly suits most small business clients. Send an extra note only when something serious happens, such as an outage.
Should reports carry my brand or the tool's?
Yours. White-label reports keep the relationship between you and your client.